what would i do without you?
by mangolemonadesmoothie
Summary: baking was somthing ino just didn't do. "sakura, do you smell something burning?" "oh that's just ino, tenten." that's why she had sakura, tenten, and hinata with her. "i didn't want you to burn down the house."


MLS: I'm excited…

Sasuke: fine, I'll bite, why are you excited?

MLS: *blinks at him* why are you here?

Sasuke: because I'm in this fanfic.

MLS: *searching script* no you aren't.

Sakura: *humming and reading script* hey, MLS why are there no guys in this fanfic?

MLS: anyways… Sasuke about your first question, I'm excited because this fanfic is about me and my friends! Well sort of… each of my friends kind of has similar personalities to one of the girls from your story.

Sakura: so… you're taking us, who you don't own by the way, *me glaring at her* and portraying us as your friends?

MLS: …yeah, pretty much.

Sakura: cool, who am i?

MLS: …

Sasuke: Um… I still want to know why there are no guys in this story.

~nssnssnss~

"Hey Sakura…"

"Yeah Tenten, what is it?"

"Do you smell something… burning?" Tenten's nose wrinkled slightly.

"Yeah, Ino's baking." Sakura answered as if this explained everything, which it sort of did. Sakura lay sprawled on the floor sifting through the sheets of music around her, "hey can you play this one?" she asked holding up a sheet.

Tenten turned around on the piano bench to squint at the paper, "sure, I haven't played it in a while but I can." As the paper was placed in front of her and she gently placed her fingers over the keys the sweet melody of "Titanic" whispered around the room. Every so often a broken note floated out of the piano but other than that the music was beautiful. Sakura stood behind Tenten with her eyes closed humming along to what her friend was playing. At the end of the song Sakura opened her eyes and beamed at her friend. "I love it when you play."

Tenten was about to answer when a crash came from the kitchen. Simply tensing in surprise Tenten had to bite her tongue to not laugh as Sakura jumped about a foot in the air while moving backwards, causing her to unintentionally flip over the couch and land with a thud and an 'oof' followed by a swear word or two. Standing up she glared down the hallway while rubbing a shoulder.

"Hinata," they heard Ino plead, "please help me. You're the one with all the baking experience, well, you and Sakura but I don't know where she is."

"Ino, why did you sign up for the _bake sale_, when you know you can't bake." Came Hinata's soft reply. It was a known fact that the only thing Ino could 'cook' was cereal and milk and macaroni and cheese, and even that had to be watched closely.

"Because there was nothing else left that was good, and I _expected_ you, Sakura and Tenten to help me." Ino deadpanned.

Glancing at her shoulder that was already starting to turn purple, Sakura grumbled, "Come on Tenten, we better save the house while we still can." Tenten grinned as her friend exasperatedly walked down the hall towards the kitchen. Upon arrival at said room Tenten had to refrain from turning tail and running. Smoke clogged the air so thickly the light filtering thru from the ceiling lights seemed only at 'half power', making Hinata's disapproving but kind face look slightly grey and Ino's pleading blue eyes hazy. Sakura was the first to move, steadily walking over to all the windows and throwing them wide. When the room was thoroughly aired out she closed them again and tuned to Ino. "We don't want the fire alarms going off." She said casually.

Ino stared agape at her for a moment before collecting herself and setting her face in a stubborn expression and pointing a finger at her, "you… you… good cooking person… you. Stop flaunting your cooking knowledge."

Completely ignoring Ino's comment, Sakura asked, "okay, first, how many… sweets do you have to make," she glanced at the multitude of different baking pans behind her friend, "second, when do you have to make them by, third, I need to know what you're making before I can help."

It was Hinata who answered as the three other girls all turned to look at her holding up a piece of paper, "it says… 'Five dozen cookies, any kind, approximately three dozen cupcakes, all vanilla, and one medium sized chocolate cake and um… the bake sale is… **tomorrow**!'" they all gave a quick glance/glare to Ino.

Tenten sighed. "Ino, that's _a lot_ of stuff to make by tomorrow."

Hinata pulled the piece of paper from her face to look at her. "It's not so bad Tenten, we can pull it off, my family does it every year at Christmas; we end up with cookie tins all over the kitchen when we're done." She whispered brightly, pearly eyes shining.

"Hey Sakura?" all sets of eyes turned to Tenten, "can you do the icing if we do everything else?"

Sakura playfully narrowed her green eyes, "sure, but what's so special about my icing anyways?"

"Not really sure," Ino answered, "but it's _so _good I could eat it plain!"Her eyes were shining, already dreaming of icing.

Hinata's lips twitched as she tried to prevent a smile, Tenten was snickering and Sakura was giggling behind her hand when Ino returned from her trip to la-la-land. Composing themselves they got to work assigning jobs to everyone; Hinata was making cookies, her specialty, Tenten was making cupcakes from the multitude of boxes of mix that Ino had purchaced, and Ino and Sakura were baking a chocolate cake. Over the next four hours the house was filled with the smells of baking sugary treats and the sounds of laughter. By the time it was two o'clock, dozens of pastries were covering every surface in the kitchen and the girls and floor were coated in a thin layer of flour due to an accident with an exploding bag of it. The only one still working was Sakura, beating together the ingredients for her icing.

"Did it say what flavor the icing had to be?" Sakura mused not taking her eyes off the mixture.

"Hmm… no I don't think so," answered Hinata running her eyes over the paper. "It just says vanilla cupcakes so I assume those are vanilla but the cake doesn't say the 'icing' has to be chocolate."

"Okay…"Sakura muttered. For another minute it was quiet except for the beating of the hand held mixer. "Done!" Sakura almost screamed in excitement. She held up the bowl for the girls to see, inside was a thick mixture that looked almost identical to beaten egg whites.

Putting down the mixer for the three other girls to share—in which Ino won both beaters—Sakura took a spatula and dropped the icing into a plastic, zip-lock bag. When none was left in the bowl she closed the bag and cut a small hole in one corner. As Tenten and Hinata watched, Sakura carefully squeezed the icing onto the cupcakes until they were all coated in a cute swirl of vanilla frosting. Scrutinizing her handy work Sakura smiled, satisfied and eyed the remaining frosting in the bag then glanced at the cake. Setting down the bag of frosting, now only a fourth filled and walked over to the cabinet. She stood for a moment with her hands on her hips staring at the top shelf before climbing onto the counter to reach. After another few seconds Sakura dropped back down with several jars in her arms and a grin on her face. As she put them down on an unoccupied portion of the counter the jars turned out to be sprinkle containers and a bottle of 'real' fudge syrup.

"Here, Hinata, Tenten, sprinkle these on the cupcakes to make them more…" Sakura waved her hands around as if trying to find the right word in the air, "interesting. Hurry before the icing gets hard or the sprinkles won't stick." Handing them the colored sugar she turned and got out a butter knife. She promptly stuck the knife into the jar of fudge sauce and pulled it out with a giant glob of the chocolate goo stuck to it before letting it slide off and plop onto the top of the cake.

Ino came walking back into the room from who knows where to see the syrup drop onto the cake as an excited and thoughtful Sakura looking at it and Tenten and Hinata going back and forth between the chocolate goo and Sakura's face.

"What is that?" Ino squeaked.

Without turning Sakura answered, "I'm making the cake cool." She put the jar of fudge down and picked up the bag of frosting and began to put a rim of icing swirls around the bottom of the cake. When the entire cake was encompassed she stood back up and watched the chocolate fudge continue to slowly ooze closer to the edges of the cake. When the fudge began to drip over the sides of the cake Sakura whisked it up and set it in the fridge. Looking proud of herself she said, "there now the cake will look cool, and by the way the reason I used the fudge was because I realized I didn't have enough icing to cover the whole cake."

Tenten was the first to answer, "Well as long as it doesn't _taste_ bad, I think it was a good idea."

The four girls smiled and sighed happily at the prospect of being done before Hinata sneezed. "Can we get this flour up? It's making my nose itch." She asked, gently rubbing her nose.

~nssnssnss~

MLS: done.

Sakura: sweet and cute but you still didn't tell me who I was.

MLS: you're me.

Sakura: really? That's cool, are we similar?

MLS: mmmm… sorta.

Sasuke: there were still no boys.


End file.
